A Shipment (also called a Dispatch) records that goods have been sent to a customer. It can be created directly or based on one or more existing sales orders, where the goods and prices are retrieved automatically. The process is: create a Shipment in Draft state, optionally adjust lines and quantities, then perform the Ship action to record it as shipped. Posting can subsequently happen automatically in the background.
Open the app Financial. In the left menu, select Sales and under it Shipments.
If you cannot see the menu item, you probably do not have permission to it. Contact support.
The list view shows all Shipments as a paginated grid. At the top is a context button bar on the left with actions on the selected shipment, and a button bar on the right with create, edit and general functions.
Shipment: The unique sequence number for the shipment. The column is sortable.
Customer: The full name of the associated customer.
Org. unit: The organizational unit the shipment belongs to.
State: The current state — Draft, Shipped, Posting or Cancelled.
Date: Creation time, shown with date and time.
Created by: The username of the user who created the shipment.
Total: Total amount formatted as currency, right-aligned.
Additional columns can be shown or hidden via the column selection function in the grid.
At the top of the column headers you can filter the list. All filters are combined and the list is reloaded automatically.
State filter: Checkboxes for Draft, Shipped, Posting and Cancelled. By default, Draft and Shipped are selected, so that closed and cancelled shipments do not clutter the list.
Date filter: Filter on creation date.
Total filter: Filter on total amount.
Org. unit filter: Limit the list to one or more organizational units.
Created by filter: Limit to one or more users.
Number filter: Search on the numeric sequence number.
Shipments that have failed during posting are shown with a red background color in the list. The explanation is given by the text Posting error in the list's explanation field. Use the action Post - retry to restart posting for the selected shipment.
Ship: Sends the selected draft shipment. The button is active when the shipment's state is Draft.
Cancel: Cancels the selected shipment. Only active when the state is Draft.
View voucher: Opens the posting voucher or invoice voucher associated with the shipment. Only active when the shipment is in the Shipped state (i.e. posting has been completed).
Post - retry: Restarts posting for the selected shipment. Shown only when the shipment's posting status is failed and no voucher number has yet been assigned.
Create new (plus icon): Starts the dialog for creating a new shipment.
Edit (pencil icon): Opens the selected shipment in the editor. The button is only active when a shipment is selected. You can also double-click a row in the list to achieve the same result.
Report export: Exports a report for the selected shipment. Active when a shipment is selected.
Refresh: Reloads the list from the server.
Search: Advanced free-text search. Type text to search broadly, or put + in front of a number to search only in the shipment number (instead of across all fields). It is a partial match, so "+104" also finds numbers that contain 104. See also How to search in lists for more on searching and filtering.
Click Create new (plus icon) to start the creation dialog. You are presented with the choice From [sales order].
From sales order: Select this option to base the new shipment on an existing sales order. The dialog shows a grid of available sales orders with columns for Number, Customer and Total. You can search the list using the search field. Select the desired sales order and click OK. Lines and customer details from the sales order are transferred automatically to the new shipment.
Empty shipment: If you click OK without having selected a sales order, an empty shipment is created, where you add lines and fill in all fields yourself.
The editor opens either as an inline view (replacing the list) or as a pop-up dialog, depending on the context you opened the shipment from. The content is the same in both cases.
The editor is read-only for shipments that are not in the Draft state. That is, fields and lines can only be changed while the state is Draft.
Shipment (number): System-generated sequence number. Shown in the top left of the editor and cannot be edited.
State: Current state shown as a read-only field — Draft, Shipped, Posting or Cancelled.
Org. unit: Required field. Select the organizational unit to be linked to the shipment. The field is shown as a dropdown.
Customer: Required field. Autocomplete lookup among actors with the role Customer. When you start typing a name, matching customers are shown. Once a customer is selected and lines from sales orders are added, the customer field is locked so the customer cannot be changed unintentionally.
Address: Delivery address for the customer. Edited via an address editor component. The field is filled in automatically from the customer's master data when you select a customer.
Email: The customer's email address. Validated as a valid email address. Filled in automatically from the customer's contact details.
Phone: The customer's phone number. Validated as a valid phone number. Filled in automatically from the customer's contact details.
Below the contact details you find the product line grid with all goods on the shipment. At the top of the grid is a delete button (cross icon) that deletes the selected line. Deletion is only possible in the Draft state.
Number: The product's internal identifier.
Name: The product's name.
Sales order: Reference to the sales order number the line originates from. If the line was added manually, this field is empty.
Quantity: Editable. The quantity shipped on this line.
Price incl. VAT: Editable. Unit price including VAT.
Amount: Line amount without discount.
Discount %: Editable. Discount in percent on the line.
Total discount: Editable. Discount as a fixed amount on the line.
Total: Editable. Total line amount including discounts.
VAT %: Applicable VAT rate for the product.
VAT: Calculated VAT amount for the line.
Stock location: The stock location the item is retrieved from.
Availability: Quantity available at the selected stock location. Hover over the field to see availability at other stock locations as a tooltip.
Is currency primary: Hidden by default (boolean column). Shown by enabling the column via column selection.
Additional columns can be shown or hidden via the grid's column selection function.
In the editor there is a button Add [sales order] in the top toolbar. The button is only visible and active when the shipment is in the Draft state. Click the button to open a dialog where you can search for and select one or more sales orders. Only sales orders that match the selected customer's id, and that are not yet fully invoiced, are shown. Lines from the selected sales orders are added to the shipment. Sales orders that are already represented in the shipment are automatically filtered out in the dialog.
Below the product lines, a totals section is shown with the sum of amounts, discounts and VAT for the entire shipment.
Posting failed: Shown if the previous posting attempt failed. The panel contains the error message from the posting system. Use the action Post - retry in the toolbar to restart posting.
Error with reservations: Shown if an error occurred while applying stock reservations. The panel contains a message about what went wrong.
Add [sales order]: Opens the sales order selection dialog. Only visible in the Draft state.
Ship: Saves the shipment and performs the ship action. Active when the state is Draft and the form is valid.
Cancel: Cancels the current draft shipment. Shown only when the shipment is in the Draft state and has a saved id.
Post - retry: Restarts posting. Shown only when the posting status is failed.
Report export: Saves the shipment and then generates a report. Available in the editor's toolbar.
Save and close: Saves all changes and closes the editor.
Cancel: Discards unsaved changes and closes the editor.
A shipment goes through the following state flow:
Draft: Initial state. All fields and lines can be edited. From Draft you can perform the actions Ship and Cancel.
Shipped: The shipment is marked as shipped. The editor is read-only. The system will attempt to post the shipment in the background. From the Shipped state you can use View voucher if posting has been completed.
Posting: Posting is in progress. The shipment is read-only.
Cancelled: The shipment is cancelled and cannot be changed further.
If posting fails, the shipment remains in the Shipped state but is shown in red in the list. The action Post - retry becomes available.
The action View voucher opens a dialog with the posting voucher or invoice voucher linked to the shipped shipment. The action is only available when the shipment is in the Shipped state and posting has been completed.
On the Sales order screen there is a tab Shipments that shows all shipments linked to the relevant sales order. From here you can open an existing shipment or create a new one based on the sales order. The view is a limited version of the Shipments list.
If you have questions, you are welcome to contact support.
Want to know more?
Read more in these related articles:
Shipping methods
Set up and manage shipping methods (freight solutions) in Financial. Shipping methods are selected when creating shipments on sales orders and sent to Shipmondo for automatic generation of freight labels.
Shipping labels (Shipmondo)
Set up the integration with Shipmondo so you can create shipments and print shipping labels directly from Sapera.
Packing slip (transaction)
The packing slip shows the goods dispatched on a specific order — with customer, delivery details and product lines. Learn what it contains and where you start the printout.
